I visited more than 200 roasters and coffee shops and while I drank a lot of coffee I started to notice a very strong pattern that differentiated the great coffee shops from the average ones.

I first realized that the vast majority of customers who ordered filtered coffee had at least a basic knowledge of specialty coffee and many of them had everything they needed to make great filtered coffee at home. And it made me even more intrigued, what motivates this person to come here to have a coffee?

Talking to some Baristas, roasters and coffee lovers I was able to notice 3 things that are interconnected and that I believe are essential for a really great coffee shop and this is what differentiates great coffee shops, in my opinion :

1 – Experience is everything

In the fourth wave of coffee, coffee lovers want much more than just a delicious cup of coffee, the customer experience is extremely important, so even though it is more expensive and consumes much more time, all the great coffee shops try their best to brew the coffee in front of the customer who is going to drink it and while the coffee is being prepared the barista talks a little about the history of this coffee, about how it was processed and about the producer. Making his experience much more connected with the whole coffee chain.

2 – The coffee lover is there to learn

In addition, another thing that coffee lovers like a lot is to take advantage of that moment to learn a little more about how to brew a good coffee, learn about the method, about what proportion they could use then in this short period of time where the customer is learning they start to relate much more with specialty coffee, greatly increasing the chances of that customer coming back. For this reason more and more coffee shops are offering open cuppings so that their customers know more about coffee and are more related to this community, making specialty coffee become part of their routine.

3 – You want to have the best coffee possible.

And then we come to the last point that seems the most obvious. But, in my opinion, is the one that deserves the most attention and the one that is frequently overlooked. When I say the best coffee I can have, it’s not just about having good beans, it’s about the recipe. What I saw that motivates consumers a lot is that they realize that the coffee that they are drinking is the best that this bean can offer. How is it shown to the consumer?

• Explain that baristas do not use a single standard recipe for all coffees. Different coffees have different recipes, each coffee has its unique acidity, body, sweetness and certain methods and recipes can highlight the specificities of each coffee, and showing it to your customer makes him really feel that this coffee is the best that he could be having.
• One of the most incredible practices I saw was that the baristas in the cafeteria make a competition between them. By doing that they see who gets the best recipe for each coffee. It goes like this: it starts with everyone cupping the coffee to see the potential of it. From there, each one starts to make coffees in different methods with different recipes. The recipe that wins is the one they will suggest to the customer. That way when someone asks for a coffee the barista gives a suggestion on the method and shares a little of what was done until reaching this recipe. Showing what was highlighted in the coffee, making the customer experience truly unique!

Recapping to make your coffee shop great again:

• Make coffee in front of the customer
• tell about the history of coffee, from the cup to the producer
• have varied recipes and methods for different coffees
• explain to your client why you chose that recipe
• promote open cuppings

These are attitudes that I realized that the best coffee shops in Europe are taking to be able to really produce the best experience possible for coffee lovers!

This is a complementary post to our Instagram post “what differentiates great coffee shops”; maybe you will also enjoy one of our other posts .

written by Lucas Faria